My Reflection on Tabak's Article

You will see in my other post that I took this article and clustered the information in an outline form. It helps me to dissect topics like this, but it takes a lot of time and so I am late in getting it posted after working on over a few days. However, I was interested in the studies presented here as I am interested in doing classroom research. Therefore, I did get some understanding beyond some of the new terminology after a few reads through and putting the content in bulletized form.

I like the way that Tabak defines design-based research methods, especially concerning exogenous versus endogenous, and how they apply to classroom research. This helped me to understand the study and the basis for some of the actions during the research, as well the his perspectives in his conclusions. I think that this is the point of this collection of articles and their Design-Based Research Collective.

Tabak informs us that design-based research methods is a term used to describe a particular stance taken to design-based and intervention-based studies of learning in naturalistic settings (e.g. classrooms) and then explains exogenous and endogenous design (p. 225):

• Exogenous design refers to instructional materials, activity structures, or instructional strategies that have been developed
  for the purposes of the research. Exogenous design predominantly reflects the researchers’ or “outsider’s” voice (cf. Fishman, Marx, Blumenfeld, Krajcik, & Soloway, 2004). (p. 225)
• Endogenous design refers to the set of materials and practices that are already in place in the local setting. It also refers to
  those devised by the local participants “in-action” as part of the enactment. (p. 225)
• The boundary between exogenous and endogenous design can be vague. (p. 225)

This is nice compared to other articles where it is assumed that the reader is familiar with the terminology and how the author applies this to the study.

Resource:
Tabak, I. (2004). Reconstructing context: Negotiating the tension between exogenous and
endogenous educational design. Educational Psychologist, 39 (4), 225-233.

Exogenous and Endogenous Educational Design

NOTICE: This is LONG...it is an outline of the article.

Reconstructing context: Negotiating the tension between exogenous and

endogenous educational design.

Tabak, I. (2004). Reconstructing context: Negotiating the tension between exogenous and
endogenous educational design. Educational Psychologist, 39 (4), 225-233.

Description
When design and intervention are central to the research process, context as a construct is problematized. How we define context can facilitate or impede our ability to construct rich and vertical accounts of learning. A design stance may predispose us to less profitable notions of context. Tabak presents the advantages of design-based research for understanding how to enact novel forms of learning and for understanding the means through which this learning occurs.

SUMMARY
Data Presented and Supporting Literature:
Two issues pertinent to defining context (p. 225)

• One has to do with demarcating the relevant scope and bounds of the research context because each “context” is itself embedded in yet other broader contexts that impinge on the setting and research results (Barab&Squire, 2004;Cole, 1996, p. 134).
• Second has to do with the underlying metaphors that lend meaning to the term.
• focus on this second issue with respect to design- and intervention-based research

In educational psychology, the thinking that is part of the “contextual turn” includes an appreciation for the complexity of psychological phenomena.

• studies reveal that motivational goal orientations are not stable personality traits, but are rich and malleable constructs that are influenced
  by numerous factors such as task structure and teacher press (e.g., Ames, 1992; Wolters & Pintrich, 1998).

Design-based research methods is a term used to describe a particular stance taken to design- and intervention-based studies of learning in naturalistic settings. This approach, invariably referred to as design experiments, design research, teaching experiments, or development research (Edelson, 2002), is gaining momentum in a number of educational research areas(see recent special issues: Barab, 2004; Kelly, 2003).

What Are Design-Based Research Methods? (p. 226)

• Design-based research methods incorporate both design and empirical research with the goal of developing models and understanding of learning in naturalistic intentional learning environments.
• The design aspect involves designing an intervention that refines a new form of learning to articulate and advance a particular
  position on learning.
• These can include learning materials and curricular structures, activity structures, and instructional strategies
• These designs are based on principles drawn from theory, the literature in the field, and prior research.
  
• The empirical component of design-based research methods studies learning and instruction as it occurs in naturalistic
  settings infused with these designs.
  
• The research includes a series of iterative cycles of design, enactment, retroactive analysis, and redesign.

Why Are Design-Based Research Methods Pertinent to the Study of Classroom Contexts? (p. 226)

• The study of classroom context requires the investigation of more than one variable at a time.
• Classroom context requires a qualitative and inductive component in the research program.
• A study of classroom context should attempt to answer the “how” and “why” questions in addition to the “what” questions.
• The study of context requires that the researcher be present in the classroom.

Deconstructing the “Design” in Design-Based Research Methods (p.227)

• Exogenous design refers to instructional materials, activity structures, or instructional strategies that have been developed
  for the purposes of the research. Exogenous design predominantly reflects the researchers’ or “outsider’s” voice (cf. Fishman, Marx, Blumenfeld, Krajcik, & Soloway, 2004).
• Endogenous design refers to the set of materials and practices that are already in place in the local setting. It also refers to
  those devised by the local participants “in-action” as part of the enactment.
• The boundary between exogenous and endogenous design can be vague.

In Design-Based Research (p. 228)

• Designers often deliberately under-specify the design.
• Teachers adapt designs to suit the needs of their particular students.
• Too specific might constrain teachers and not allow for localization.

• The exogenous design also acts as a communication tool (Ball&Cohen, 1996; Schneider, Krajcik,&Marx, 2000) expressing the goals and pedagogical approach that are embodied in the design. Therefore, designers might choose to omit actions and events that are essential for sustaining classroom life but not central to the innovation and key ideas of the design.

• Together, the exogenous and endogenous designs compose the fabric from which the enactment is formed. Therefore, any explanations of how learning occurred must include elements from both the exogenous and endogenous design.
• Design-based research favors an ecological approach that views designed settings as interacting systems (Cobb et al., 2003).

Study/ Research Conducted
NEGOTIATING THE TENSION BETWEEN EXOGENOUS AND ENDOGENOUS DESIGN:AN EXAMPLE (p. 229)

• The case presented illustrates how design researchers must make decisions whether to press for a particular enactment of
  an exogenous design or embrace a novel enactment. It further illustrates how such decisions can interact in constructive and
  destructive ways with the endogenous design and with our ability to derive veridical accounts of classroom learning.

Background

• The example draws from the Biology Guided Inquiry Learning Environments (BGuILE) project, a science education reform initiative attempting to support inquiry-based science in middle and high school biology classrooms and understand the development of scientific reasoning in classrooms from a sociocultural perspective (Reiser, Tabak, Sandoval, Smith, Steinmuller, & Leone, 2001; Tabak, 1999).
• In answering these questions
  
• First, we craft classroom environments that are intended to realize idealized visions of inquiry-based science.
  
• Second, we study the confluence of our research questions in diverse classrooms.

Evolution of Exogenous and Endogenous Designs (p. 230)

• 1996 study cycle.
• Exogenous design in a K–12 classroom (we worked with a 9th-grade introductory biology class). It was also the first time that the participating teacher, Ms. Patrick, taught the unit.
  
• The computer-based investigation was launched with a whole-class discussion presenting the problem phenomenon and top-level question (why a population of finches is dying and what enables the surviving finches to survive)
• The class broke up into groups and started working on their investigations at the computer.
• As students were working on their investigations, Ms. Patrick and two researchers continually circulated among the groups, engaging them in discussions about their investigations.
• As the enactment progressed, we found that these impromptu discussions with the individual groups were very helpful in sustaining and advancing students’ investigations. We concentrated our efforts on the investigation sessions and on these impromptu group-level discussions. Whole-class discussions amidst the investigation were minimal, consisting mostly of reminding students of the top-level question.
• In our retrospective analysis, found that students did not exhibit the level of sophistication concerning the “how” and “why” of strategies that we had hoped for.
• Therefore, decided that it was important to try and instantiate the whole-class structured discussions in our next cycle.
• Also found that the impromptu discussions with the groups, an element of the endogenous design, were critical to students’ productivity, however, and should be made a purposeful part of the exogenous design.
  
• Recognized that they should also be made a purposeful part of our empirical analysis and should be monitored more closely. We also recognized that we needed to incorporate more explicit support for the strategies in the software.
• 1997 study cycle.
• In contrast to 1996, in 1997, whole-class structured discussions were interleaved with group investigations.
  
• Similar to 1996, the investigation was launched with a whole-class discussion in which the top-level problem was introduced.
  
• In 1997, more emphasis was placed in this introductory discussion on brainstorming ideas about initial hypotheses and ways of exploring these hypotheses.
  
• Also in 1997, we used a revised version of the software, which included more explicit support for the inquiry strategies.
  
• The introductory launching discussion was followed by two investigation sessions (class periods of 45min),
  
• Followed by a whole-class discussion,
  
• Followed by an additional two investigation sessions and a culminating whole-class discussion.
  
• In the intermediate whole-class discussions, student groups reported on the course of their investigations
• The class discussed these processes and the group’s intermediate explanations.
  
• Ms. Patrick questioned students about the questions they raised
  
• The basis for their conclusions.
  
• The specific actions they took.

• In the impromptu discussions, Ms. Patrick would often sit and work with a group for a few minutes as part of the team.
  
• In our retrospective analysis, we examined transcripts of Ms. Patrick’s dialogues during the whole-class structured discussions and during the impromptu discussions.
• We found that the goal of helping students develop an understanding of the “how”—deciding which actions were most appropriate given this inquiry goal and orchestrating a sequence of inquiry actions—was achieved through the impromptu discussions.
  
  • In these discussions, Ms. Patrick would work with the group as a partner for a few minutes, and in doing so, she would voice her reasoning, making these strategies visible to students in relation to their own inquiry (Tabak & Baumgartner, 2004).

• We found that the goals of the “why”—understanding the utility and logic underlying the strategies—were not well met, however, as students did not gain as deep an understanding as we had hoped.
  

• We did find some compelling contributions afforded by the whole-class structured discussions. T
• The first main contribution was that they helped make private learning opportunities public (Tabak, 1999; Tabak & Reiser, 1997).
  
• The richness and significance of teacher–student interactions during group work was contingent on the students’ particular inquiry juncture at the point in time when the teacher approached the group.
  
• However, the whole-class discussions provided an opportunity to import some of these private learning opportunities from the individual group space into the public whole-class discussion space.
  
• The whole-class structured discussions also provided a venue in which the class could relate their findings to central disciplinary principles (Tabak, 1999; Tabak, Sandoval, Smith, Steinmuller, & Reiser, 1998).
  
• This is important in inquiry-based learning because students and teachers can become so immersed in the particular episode they investigate that they lose sight of the broader disciplinary principles that are an important part of the learning goals.
  

Discussion of Case Example (p. 230)

• In this case example, the exogenous design in the first study cycle was underspecified.
• It was expected that the teacher would circulate among the groups as they worked, however the design did not specify topics of discussion and instructional strategies that could be used in these teacher–student group discussions.
  
• It was expected these discussions to facilitate the students’ progress, but did not have clear expectations about what aspects of inquiry learning would be best addressed by small-group versus whole-class discussions.
  
• Elements of the exogenous design that were specified, such as structured discussions, that we intended to serve the “how” and “why” learning goals did not meet our expectations in the enactment.
  
• Initially, were not able to examine our conjecture concerning the efficacy of structured discussions for cultivating “how” and “why” understandings because unable to realize this part of the design in practice.
  
• Example of the type of “online” design decisions that need to be made as part of the microcycles of design and analysis.
  
• There were essentially two possible conclusions that we could draw.
  
• First, we could conclude that the structured discussions were not well suited to Ms. Patrick’s classroom.
  
• Second, we could conclude that, in the first study cycle, the overall intervention was not mature enough to allow for implementing the structured discussions.Given how difficult initial attempts at inquiry can be for both students and teachers (Blumenfeld,Krajcik,Marx, & Soloway, 1994; Krajcik, Blumenfeld, Marx, Bass, Fredericks, & Soloway, 1998), we concluded the latter.
  
• Although some of the learning goals—the “why” goals—had been suspended (Hammer, 1995), other goals—the “how” goals—had materialized through different venues than we originally projected.
  
• In the second study cycle, detailed analysis of the impromptu discussions helped recognize and document that the “how” goals were being met through the impromptu discussions. In a sense, the instructional support for these goals had migrated from their intended locus of the structured discussions to the impromptu discussions. In addition, discovered new roles for the structured discussion that were not part of the original intent, such as bridging between understanding of problem phenomenon and of general disciplinary principles.
  

• The fluidity between the exogenous and endogenous designs helped to realize that some of the learning goals were better met through an aspect of the endogenous design and that additional aspects of learning could be achieved through the exogenous design even though they were not part of the original specification.
  
• If we had maintained a tight focus on the exogenous design in the first study cycle and asserted the whole-class structured discussions, we may have curbed Ms. Patrick’s efforts at the impromptu discussions, keeping her from what proved to be critical to supporting student inquiry. Yet, if we had not persisted in incorporating elements of the exogenous design,we could have missed out on important forms of learning.
  
• For example, we may have forfeited an opportunity for students to relate the specific episode to disciplinary principles. This opportunity cost would have been high because the whole-class structured discussions were one of the few places in which we could identify an explicit attempt to bridge between episode examples and disciplinary principles.
  

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION OF CONTEXT

• Negotiating between exogenous and endogenous designs is difficult, and being partial to one or the other could result in overlooking important learning mechanisms.
  
• Traditional approaches to design in educational research foreground what I have termed the exogenous design and background the endogenous design.
  
• Although design researchers have justly been cautioned against never abandoning an unpromising design because the conditions of success are continually incorporated into the (exogenous) design (Dede, 2004), I suggest that there is also a danger of presenting distorted accounts of learning that over attribute success to the exogenous design and overlook the role of the endogenous design. This has been argued to occur in other areas of inquiry that took a figure-ground approach to context (Goodwin & Duranti, 1992) or that combined ethnography and intervention (Pors, Henriksen, Winthereik, & Berg, 2002a; Zuiderent, 2002). This figure-ground approach to context has been challenged by scholars in a number of disciplines (Burke, 2002;Goodwin & Duranti, 1992), including education (Lave, 1996).
• An alternative construction of context that is more aligned with its linguistic roots (“to weave”) sees it as intertwined and coconstituting elements that cannot be reduced to “the object” and “that which surrounds the object” (Burke, 2002; Cole, 1996, pp. 135–137), similar to what Cobb et al. (2003) referred to as an ecological approach. In relation to this discussion, an ecological approach or “weaving” metaphor of context views context as the amalgam of exogenous and endogenous designs, similar to what Suchman (1994) referred to as “artful integration.”
  
• The design-based research community has recently been challenged to articulate guidelines for minimizing bias (e.g., Kelly, 2004). As part of this process, we will need to articulate well-specified methods for embracing a weaving metaphor and for attending equally well to exogenous and endogenous design.
  
• In the confines of this article, I can only give this cursory treatment. I hope that drawing attention to the distinction between exogenous and endogenous designs, and the ways in which our conceptions of context can influence our ability to negotiate the tensions that can arise between them, provides an impetus for this future work.Clearly, there is much that we can learn from the existing knowledge base on general (LeCompte & Schensul, 1999) and critical (Carspecken, 1996) ethnographic methods, such as entering the field with multiple observers (designers and nondesigners) or peer-researcher interviews and debriefings that serve to uncover implicit assumptions of bias. We can also benefit from advances in the field of Computer-Supported Collaborative Work that also grapples with the tensions associated with combining ethnography and intervention (see, e.g., a recent special issue: Pors, Henriksen,Winthereik,&Berg, 2002b). In the design-based research literature, there are emerging calls to focus on constructing narratives of change as the products of our field work (Barab & Squire, 2004).
  
• In light of the issues that I have raised here, it will be important to consider who should be the “protagonist” of the narrative. Composing the story around the exogenous design might exacerbate the tensions that I pointed to in this article. A more profitable approach might attempt to construct multiple intersecting narratives with different local participants, such as students and teachers, as the main characters of the story. “Design success rests on the extent and efficacy of one’s analysis of specific environments of devices and working practices, finding a place for one’s own technology within them” (Suchman, 2000).
• If we move away from the notion of intervention as a “prepackaged” artifact that is imposed on the local participants toward a notion of intervention as a process of iterative coconstruction between “outsiders” and “insiders,” we may be in a better position to develop a rich understanding of the complex means that support novel forms of learning.
  

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Tonight I was reminded of this book based on the research of Carol S. Dweck. I think that a lot of the questions asked about what should we teach and when should teach it can be answered by the mindset topic. I didn’t want “to go there” in class tonight as we would have digressed more than usual. However, I think that if educators concentrate more on building “growth mindset” children and students, then the content will not be some much the issue as we will be developing continuous learners that know how to reflect, think, and learn. Most of this post is from an investigation paper I wrote after reading this book.

Why do some people appear to be more motivated to learn while others appear to lack motivation? Is it motivation based or ability based? Is intelligence, ability, and capability something that one is born with or is it possible to acquire these traits? Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D. has approached this topic with extensive research and presents some compelling results in her book, "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success."

Carol Dweck’s twenty plus years of research indicates, “the view that you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way that you lead your life.” (Dweck, 6). There are two mindsets that one can have; the fixed mindset or the growth mindset. The fixed mindset is based on the premise that you have only a certain amount of intelligence, personality, and character. This “carved in stone” mindset leaves the individual to constantly try to prove himself or herself over and over (6). Conversely, the growth mindset promotes the belief that your basic qualities and abilities can be cultivated through ones efforts (7). We all have different strengths, weaknesses, and abilities. However, we can “change and grow through application and experience” (7).

Some of the attributes of the two mindsets:

Fixed Mindset:
*Seek the safe, sure, thing
*If something is too challenging lose interest
*A non-leaner
*View failures as catastrophic
*IQ is fixed; it is all you will ever have
*Your character and personality is what it is
*Must “BE” already; expect ability to “show up”
*Defeated or destroyed by one low score or poor evaluation
*I failed = I am a failure
*Success and failure defines you
*Effort is for people with deficiencies and is a sign of weakness
*Lose confidence when fail at something and stop trying or make excuses

Growth Mindset:
*Stretch yourself
*Thrive on challenge
*A learner
*See failure as an opportunity to learn and get better
*Intelligence can grow
*Character and personality can change
*Becoming is better than “Being”
*Challenged and learn from low scores or poor evaluations
*I failed = I will get better
*Not defined by accomplishments or lack of accomplishments
*Admire effort regardless of accomplishment
*Confident in success and failure

Having the growth mindset as an educator, as well those that you instruct, will result in an approach that “everyone can learn and improve”—thus resulting in the igniting of minds (195). Consider the following statements. Do you mostly agree or disagree?:

1. Your intelligence is something very basic about you that you can’t change very much.
2. You can learn new things, but you can’t really change how intelligent you are.
3. No matter how much intelligence you have, you can always change it quite a bit.
4. You can always substantially change how intelligent you are.

1 and 2 reflect the fixed-mindset and 3 and 4 the growth-mindset.


What about personal qualities? Again mostly agree or disagree?:

1. You are a certain kind of person, and there is not much that can be done to really change that.
2. No matter what kind of person you are, you can always change substantially.
3. You can do things differently, but the important parts of who you are can’t really be changed.
4. You can always change basic things about the kind of person that you are.

1 and 3 reflect the fixed-mindset and 2 and 4 the growth-mindset.

Although you can be a mixture, most people will lean one-way or the other. Your mindset of intelligence or personality will affect how you approach mental ability situations and those that involve personal qualities (13).

This book is filled with numerous academic, business, and sports examples that demonstrate both mindsets. Each mindset is its “own world” and vastly shapes ones life and others that one will be associated with. One world is about validating yourself by proving that you are smart or talented. The other world is about stretching yourself to learn new things and continually developing. Benjamin Barber, an eminent sociologist, once said, “ I divide the world into learners and nonlearners” (16).

So when do the two mindsets begin? Babies don’t appear to be worried about making mistakes as they develop, rather they embrace each new learning opportunity, That is until the reach a point where the are able to evaluate themselves. In Carol Dweck’s research they observed four year olds working on puzzles. When the choice was given to either redo an easy jigsaw puzzle or attempt a harder one, something interesting happened. The children with a fixed mindset stuck with the safe ones resisting the option of making mistakes. However, the children who displayed the growth mindset embraced the challenge and continued to seek more challenging puzzles. So the conclusion was that the fixed mindset children wanted to make sure that they succeed, but the growth mindset children wanted stretch themselves to become smarter (17).

So when do you feel smart? Is it when you are mistake free or is it when you are learning? For the fixed mindset person it is all about perfection now, but the growth mindset is about facing a challenge and making progress.

Why does it matter which mindset that you, your students, or children have? Dweck’s book is filled with the negative results of CEO, athletes, musicians, etc. that had potential that was limited by the fixed mindset. Those that were “naturals” failed, but the “average” men and women who confronted challenges and setbacks with hard work and dedication prevailed. The growth mindset people exemplified the 1960 quote “becoming is better than being” and went from ordinary to extraordinary.

So this sounds great but how do we change ourselves and develop others into the growth mindset? One thing we can’t do is lower standards in order to boost self-esteem. When studying the “great teachers” the common belief was in the growth of intellect and talent and a fascination with the process of learning (189). “Do teachers have to love all of their students? No, but they do have to CARE about every SINGLE student.”(190). Benjamin Bloom’s study of 120 world-class athletes, artists, and academia’s, revealed a fascinating consistency. The first teachers for most of these people created an atmosphere that was “I’m going to teach you rather than I am going to judge your talent.”(191).

Some attributes of growth minded teachers:
*Create an atmosphere of affection and deep personal commitment to every student
*To challenge and nurture
*To teach students to love learning and to learn to think for themselves
*Tell the students the truth and then give them the tools to close the gap
*Leading the students to grasp that school is for them- a way to grow their minds
*Promote the concept that it is about practice and learning, not smart and dumb
*Continue to learn with and from the students
*A deep desire to ignite the mind of every child

The growth mindset is based on the belief in change (207). Carol Dweck was a fixed-mindset person who has transitioned to a growth-mindset. There are many examples of people who have transitioned to the growth-mindset. The change is not about “picking up a few pointers here and there”, rather it is about “seeing things in a new way” (238). It is about changing from a “judge-and-be-judged framework to a learn-and-help-learn framework” (238). The change requires a commitment to growth, which will involve plenty of time, effort, and mutual support (238).

Carol Dweck asked, “Did changing to a growth mindset solve all of my problems? No, But I know that I have a different life because of it—a richer one. And that I’m more alive, courageous, and open person because of it.” (239).

Closing questions to consider (238):
What are the opportunities for learning and growth today? For myself? For the people around me?

Resource:
Dweck, Carol S. Ph.D. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Random House

A Theory of Physically Distributed Learning

A Theory of Physically Distributed Learning: How External Environments and Internal States Interact in Mathematics Learning

Martin, T. (in press). A theory of physically distributed learning: How external environments and internal states interact in mathematics learning. Child Development Perspectives.

Description:
Physically Distributed Learning (PDL)- Understanding that children learn new concepts in concrete contexts and transfer these concepts to abstract situations. This paper presents an alternative theory of PDL.

About Physically Distributed Learning (PDL):

• NCTM and pre-service teacher handbooks support using manipulative's to teach elementary mathematics
• Hands-on materials help children learn, but how and when?
• DCog (I like that better than "distributive cognition") is a useful theoretical perspective as it considers interactions with the environmental affect thinking and problem solving.
• Co-evolution:
• over time, children's initial ideas and actions change as they evolve
  
• maybe transferring understanding as prior knowledge improves as new concepts are introduced
  
• new actions and ideas emerge when old ones fail
  
• In emergence, children take actions that suggest new ideas or develop ideas that suggest new actions
• Children’s actions are more variable and accurate when they use dynamic
  materials than when they use static materials (Ainsworth & VanLabeke, 2004; Martin &
  Schwartz, 2005).

• Action-interpretation sequences
• Through solving multiple problems, children discover useful combinations of actions and ideas.
• Children then repeat these combinations, decreasing the variability in their actions and interpretations.
  
• Next, children coordinate their actions and interpretations into action-interpretation sequences
• General Structures
  
  • The use of number relationships, rules of the number system, and number facts to solve problems suggests that children are developing more general structures.
  • e.g. "number relationships such as “one more” and “one less”

Data Presented (Prior research):

• This paper presents results of studies of elementary school children solving number operation problems with manipulatives.
  
• These studies investigate three critical elements of the PDL hypothesis.
  
• First, action is beneficial but insufficient without interpretations.
  
• Second, actions and interpretations coevolve.
  

• Third, children can transition to solving problems mentally, suggesting that PDL helps them develop more general structures for number understanding that support transfer.
  

• 10 year olds solved operator problems without feedback as part of a longer interview on fractions (Martin &Schwartz, 2005).
  
• Each child solved two problems with manipulatives and two problems
  using a pencil to draw on illustrations of the same pieces.
• The same children solved the problems correctly 76% of the time with manipulatives, but only 16% of the time with the pictures (regardless of the order of the tasks).

• Two studies demonstrate that neither actions nor interpretations is sufficient for problem solving alone.
• The first, 10yearolds solved problems they understood well(multiplication problems) and problems they struggled with (fraction addition with different denominators) with different manipulatives.
• The second study, 10yearolds solved operator problems without feedback using manipulatives and pictures.
• When the children moved pieces, they answered correctly more often than when the pieces were already partitioned into the correct groups.
  
• This result demonstrates that manipulation helps children develop interpretations.
  

Martin's Research:

• Coevolution as a Mechanism for Change (p.9)
• Children completed three interviews with feedback and a pretest and posttest without feedback. We examined the match between children’s actions and interpretations by computing an agreement score for the interviews (the absolute value of the difference between the number of problems children solved successfully and the number of problems they used partitioning).
• Patterns in the Development of Action-Interpretation Sequences (p.10)
• To develop a more fine-grained analysis of coevolution, we examined students’ actions and interpretations on each problem attempt. Then we described and examined how these action-interpretation pairs changed over time. We found three patterns of howstudents developed coordinated action-interpretation sequences.
• Developing Generalizable Mathematical Ideas (p.11)
• Through PDL, children develop general mathematical ideas independent of the physical context. In the division study, children used more mental strategies over time.

Martin's Conclusions:

• Physically distributed learning can help explain how the concrete plays a role in learning abstract mathematical concepts.
  
• Through a process of coevolution, actions and interpretations develop each other, and eventually, children develop stable ideas and
  solve problems using mental strategies.
• The research summarized here describes studies with simple arithmetic concepts and similar tasks.
  
• It remains to be seen if PDL is more broadly applicable.
  
• One way to begin to address this question is to consider how PDL may apply to the data from the various and interesting perspectives presented in this issue.
• Another important factor to consider is the structure of the learning environment(Brown, McNeil & Glenberg, this issue).
  
• PDL predicts children’s learning will suffer if the environment is over structured such that it does too much mental work for children.
• Highly structured environments, such as cockpits (Hutchins, 1995a), are excellent for achieving well known tasks quickly, but may stifle learning opportunities.
  
• Virtual or computer based manipulatives offer excellent opportunities for investigating levels of structure appropriate for different tasks as they are easily reprogrammed to instantiate varying levels of structure (Sarama & Clements, this issue; Sarama & Clements, 2004).
• A reasonable prediction from PDL is that coevolution will be most likely to occur when interaction is allowed within an environment that structures that interaction productively.

Distributed Cognition (DCog)

This "distributive cognition" concept was still bugging me even after Lila and I discussed more after class. Therefore, I was searching around the Internet (it is really no different than going to the library and looking through books and journals...except that it is 2:30 a.m. and I am in my pajamas and "letting my fingers do the walking"...hey, that is a catchy slogan, I should market that) for more information and came across this website with a definition and description that finally satisfied me with an understanding of what distributive cognition means. So read below and see what you think. Plus I love the "DCog" abbreviation...I keep thinking "yo, wuz up DCog?"...sorry, not sure why...did I mention that it is now 2:30 a.m.? Okay read and see what you think...

From Learning-Theories.com:

Summary: Distributed cognition is a branch of cognitive science that proposes cognition and knowledge are not confined to an individual; rather, it is distributed across objects, individuals, artifacts, and tools in the environment.

Originators: Edwin Hutchins in the 1990s.

Key Terms: Cognition in the Wild, mind in the world, artifacts, environment, representational media

Distributed Cognition (DCog)

Edwin Hutchins, a cognitive psychologist and anthropologist, studied how navigation is coordinated on US navy ships around San Diego. From his observations, he posited that the mind is in the world (as opposed to the world being in the mind). That is, the necessary knowledge and cognition to operate a naval vessel do not exist solely within one’s head; knowledge and cognition is distributed across objects, individuals, artifacts, and tools in the environment. The goal of Distributed Cognition is to describe how distributed units are coordinated by analyzing the interactions between individuals, the representational media used, and the environment within which the activity takes place. The unit of analysis can therefore be described as systems that dynamically reconfigure their sub-systems to accomplish functions individuals, artifacts, their relations to each other (e.g. bridge of a ship, airplane cockpit, air traffic control). Distributed Cognition is about defining mechanisms of cognitive processes: e.g. memory in a cockpit encompasses internal processes, physical manipulation of objects, and the creation/exchange of external representations.

Distributed Cognition, which often makes use of ethnographically collected data, is not so much a method; more accurately, it is a useful descriptive framework that describes human work systems in informational and computational terms. It is useful for analyzing situations that involve problem-solving. As it helps provide an understanding of the role and function of representational media, it has implications for the design of technology in the mediation of the activity, because the system designers will have a stronger, clearer model of the work. Thus, it is an important theory for such fields as CSCL, CSCW, HCI, instructional design, and distance learning.

For more information, see:

• Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the wild. MIT Press.
• Hutchins, E. (1995). How a cockpit remembers its speeds. Cognitive Science, 19, 265-288.
• Norman, D. A. (1993) Things that make us smart. Addison-Wesley.
• Perry, M. (2003). Distributed Cognition. In J.M. Carroll (Ed.) HCI Models, Theories, and Frameworks: Toward an Interdisciplinary Science. Morgan Kaufmann. pp. 193-223.

Technology Teachers

You got to love this comic! One of my 486 students posted this on her blog and stated, "I feel like this comic depicts exactly the way many teachers feel- their technology skills and resources are much lower than their students experience and expectations. To help the poor, struggling, technology-deprived teacher to better suit her student, many Internet tools have been created to restore that understanding and accessibility of the classroom." She then went on to comment that she was enjoying learning about how to use various technology tools and was looking forward to learning more about implementing various technology tools in the classroom.

I was reminded of the quote I used in one of my earlier posts.
"The inventor of the system deserves to be ranked among the best contributors to learning and science, if not the greatest benefactors of mankind.” - Josiah F. Bumstead 1841 ...on the benefits of the chalkboard

Radical changes in cognitive process due to technology: A jaundiced view.

Glenberg, A. M. (2006). Radical changes in cognitive process due to technology: A jaundiced
view. Pragmatics and Cognition, 14 (2), 263-274.

Description:
Given the framework that the cognitive system is designed to guide action. Consider that technology might induce substantial changes in cognition

Data Presented:
Empirical work linking action and cognition

1. Ground cognition in action

• Symbol Grounding

• Something outside the symbol (abstract, amodal, and arbitrary symbols of language, math, and computers) that gives the symbol meaning

• Grounding language in action

• Brains evolved for action so other systems like language are built on a base of action.

• Empirical support for grounding meaning in action

• Neuroscience- "lick" activates motor cortex for mouth, "pick" activates motor cortex for hand, and "kick" activates motor cortex for leg.
  

2. A general framework for cognition and action

• Basic function of the cognitive system is to select the next action.
  

3. Action framework and distributed cognition (three characteristics)

1. Cognitive processes may be distributed across members of a social group
2. Cognitive processes may involve coordination between internal and external structures.
3. Cognitive processes may be distributed through time so that final product reflects earlier products.
   

4. Implications for technology

• Will the Internet "induce substantive changes in any aspect of cognition itself?"
• Will the Internet and other technologies "shift from being mere tools that aid cognition to having constitutive roles in shaping cognitive processes themselves"?
• Will investigations of e-learning and e-training "prove to be ground-breaking for the understanding of the crucial cognitive process of acquiring and using knowledge"?

• One reason for skepticism is due to evolutionary changes in cognition are appear to be incremental and not radical.
  
• Second reason for skepticism technology attempts to re-program the cognitive system as in it were a general-purpose computer. Rather than the human cognitive system that is based on action.
  
• Third reason for skepticism is that e-learning systems use few real manipulables and there is no body language as with face-to face.
  
• Fourth reason for skepticism temporal limits on human learning.
  

Glenburg's Conclusion:

View of technology not completely jaundiced.

• Addicted to email and Google Scholar.
• More worldwide contacts.
• Read more widely.
  

However, are my thinking processes qualitatively different from a decade ago?

• Don't detect a difference
• Skepticism due to sensitivity to the principles of biological cognitive systems.

Article That I Found

Teachers’ mindsets and the integration of computer technology

Description:

Qualitative Study published in the British Journal of Educational Technology examining teachers' integration of computer technology for teaching.

Who:

6 secondary school science teachers in Republic of Singapore

• All were graduates with a postgraduate diploma in secondary teaching
• All indicated that they had been using computer technology in their teaching for 3 years.
• All had learnt (is that really a word?) to use computer technology from school-based training sessions.
• Selected based on their motivation to participate in study and keenness to reflect on their teaching with the integration of computer technology.

What:

Participants’ teaching action with use of computer technology was examined over a 5-month period. Data consisted of observations of the participants teaching actions in their classrooms and transcripts of classroom discourse from observations. Other data included transcripts of individual interviews, focus group interviews, and narratives. The major focus of interviews was to gather descriptive data in the participants’ own words to construct insights into the participants’ teaching actions with computer technology.

Findings:

Revealed that a number of psychological insights infused the participants’ mindsets when they were teaching with computer technology in their classrooms:

• Mediation as a journey
• Mediation as adopting roles
• Mediation as mutual investment
• Mediation as liberating and/or domesticating

Conclusion:

The study has shown that teachers’ roles are more than spatial and temporal movements in the classroom and has demonstrated that teachers teaching with computer technology work at different and complex levels. Revealed that teachers teaching with computer technology possess mindsets that contain psychological insights that mediate the expressive and instrumental purposes of teaching within the zone of proximal development.

My Thoughts:

I was drawn to this with the idea of observing 6 teachers over 5 months. I was thinking that...hey, this may be doable...then after a lot of blah, blah...decided a lot of work for information that was not what I really wish to do...so I punt in this study!

Reference:

Subramaniam, K. (2007, November 1). Teachers' Mindsets and the Integration of Computer Technology. British Journal of Educational Technology, 38(6), 1056-1071. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ776044) Retrieved February 5, 2009, from ERIC database.

Jeff and Lila's Article

Understanding the Net Generation through LiveJournals and Literacy Practices

Assignment:
Summarize describe the study, data, sample size, methods, what they found out.

• method- Ethnographic case study
• Conducted fall 2005
• Pilot for a longer study
• sample size- One Students experience (single college student aka Darla)
  
• Conducted by Dana J Wilber
  

Description:
The ethnographic case study focused on the experience of one student in order to discern how her experience with a particular tool, LiveJournal a SNS, reflected the development of distinctive literacies that merit further consideration by educators. (quote from paper).

• Provides a description of Live Journal
• Provides an overview of social networking
• offers connections to higher education research and pedagogy.
  

Method:
Ethnographic case study

• random contact of student from LiveJournal
• lasted 3 months
• printed blog posts
• interviewed her via email once a week

Sample size:

One Students experience (single college student aka Darla)

Data:

• Darla reported being online => 10 times a day (email, LiveJournal and IM)
• considered herself fairly proficient with technology
• LiveJournal (L J)- is a SNS
• Darla not sure if L J was like a "real journal" never kept one
• Darla interview:
  • used L J to express anger
  • hybrid of public/private allows post things they know others would see
    

What they found out:

• Mirror's data collected by other researchers listed
• Faculty needs to understand new literacy practices and consider regarding them as resources for creating new, multi-modal practices.
• Darla was able to develop talents that her academic assignments rarely asked her to tap by using semiotic and intertexual techniques
• Students are more likely to find personal blogs as meaningful, authentic, and creative spaced for self exploration as they are for academic performance.
• Blogs connect students to other students around the globe.
• Faculty has the responsibility to help students make the connection from past and outside experiences to new things learned
  • this is best accomplished by building upon things the students know well
• Students who create and maintain blogs for their classes create something both personal and scholarly by weaving their own experiences and reactions into course material.
• Life is shifting and to best teach students faculty must shift too.

Written Summary for use in papers:

In a 2005 ethnographic case study one student who was fairly proficient technically was followed via a blog and then interviewed via email for a period of three months. The study showed that students use these net spaces and blogs to make meaning of their worlds and as such faculty should reach out and embrace such tools rather than ignoring their existence.

Reference:
Wilber, D. (2007). Myliteracies: Understanding the net generation through livejournals and literacy practices. Innovate, 3 (4).

Keen helped me?

Okay, I really hate to admit this...but my ole buddy Keen helped me this last week. Actually, he helped me to look at some things differently, maybe. Well, I guess the whole point of us looking at Shirky and Keen was to consider different perspectives. Like Jay...er Dr. Pfaffman said, sometimes it is good to read perspectives like this so that you know how other people may view certain topics. This helps one to be better equipped to work with people with various views...or least help them to see both sides of the debate if you will.

To give you some background for those that do not know. I am currently instructing a section of IT486, which is an introduction to using technology in the K-12 classroom. It is a lot of fun for me helping these future teachers learn about various ways to incorporate technology tools into the classroom. I see myself as someone who is there to help enable them to use the technology...to know what it is and how to use it. It is not for me to convince them to use it, but rather how to use it and how current teachers use it. Then it is up for them to determine which tools work for their subject and grade, etc.

What has surprised me at times is that these teacher education students (mainly under 30 years old) are sometimes skeptics when it comes to using things like blogs and wikis in the classroom. I was thinking that these are digital immigrants that are used to using things like MySpace and Facebook, or at lease using blogs and discussion boards, and they will be open to using modern technology approaches to education. Not so fast! Many are very open and like the thought of using things like blogs and wikis. However, there are some that aren't so sure it is a good idea. Interestingly, it is the English teachers that are the most skeptical and they are the ones that I would have thought would have been the most fired up about using tools that might encourage more writing participation from students.

It seems that some fit the mold of those that entered teaching because they liked things the way it is/was (we have discussed this many times in grad courses) and some have had it "drilled into them" by professors with similar views of Mr. Keen. As I have read their comments and reflections about using blogs in the classroom, I am seeing this Keen view more and more. So after, reflecting on Keen and Dr. Pfaffman's comments about reading such books I began to look at things differently. Not that I was swayed to that perspective, but maybe better equipped to respond to it.

Therefore, this week as I responded to posts where the students (my English ones again) were venting about how they would not use blogs in their classroom and that maybe blogs even should not ever be used in a classroom, I tried to respond more openly. Rather than debate their point or give a "tit for tat" reply, I simply thanked them for their candid and honest expression and told them I was not going to try to convince them that it was a good idea. I told them I only wanted them to know how to set up a blog and how to use it. That my goal with all of the technology tools that we learned about in the course would be that they know what it is and how to use it. I then explained that after being exposed to all of the tools available, it would be their decision as to which tools they used and how they used them in their classroom.

However, I did encourage them to investigate how current teachers were using them and the effects that were being observed. I then exposed them to one such teacher that had recently emailed me about using blogs and wikis in her classroom. Mrs. Trefz, a 5th grade teacher, sent me this comment in an email,

"I must say that I have seen a huge difference in my students' motivation to learn since we have begun posting on the blog and wiki. It gives writing a real purpose and I am seeing them revise and edit without the reminders. They know that the world is watching and they want to make a great impression. Great grammar and writing habits are being created and reinforced without the extra push that I once had to give."

To see Mrs. Trefz's 5th grade blog go to http://trefz.blogspot.com/ and to see the class wiki go to http://pdsenglish5.pbwiki.com/

I will keep you posted on how things work on out...